Author: blueneck

Men fear thought more than they fear anything else on earth — more than ruin, more even than death. Thought is subversive and revolutionary, destructive and terrible; thought is merciless to privilege, established institutions, and comfortable habits; thought is anarchic and lawless, indifferent to authority, careless of the well-tried wisdom of the ages … But if thought is to become the possession of many, not the privilege of the few, we must have done with fear. It is fear that holds men back — fear lest their cherished beliefs should prove delusions, fear lest the institutions by which they live should prove harmful, fear lest they themselves should prove less worthy of respect than they have supposed themselves to be.

-Bertrand Russell

The National Conference for Media Reform got off to a great start this morning.

[Friday January 12]

The first speaker, master of ceremonies for the opening event, was John Nichols, Editor of The Nation magazine.  He introduced the Mayor of Memphis, Dr. Willie W. Herrington, who welcomed us and invited members of the local media to attend some of the sessions about media bias!

Next up was Yolanda Hippensteel, of the Free Press, who announced that over 3000 people are attending this conference from almost every state in the U.S.

Then, Danny Glover, well known actor and activist quoted extensively from a Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. speech, delivered on December 27, 1962, at a church conference in Nashville, Tennessee, and related it to the need for unbiased and accurate media.

Then came Bill Moyers.  The crowd greeted him with a standing ovation and I’m proud to say I was the first on my feet at the front of the room.

From the NCMR2007 website:

[DETAILS EDITED OUT, SEE VIDEO LINKS BELOW!]
He went out with another standing ovation and had to return for a curtain call before the audience would quit…

Later tonight there should be video available at the Freepress.net site and perhaps at youtube also.  I highly recommend you watch it.  I’ll be back to update and give you a link here as soon as I can and to blog about the afternoon sessions.

You can get lots of other viewpoints of this conference by googling the NCMR2007 tag that has been set up for youtube and flickr, etc.

I’ve got to run to a break out session, but I’ll be back when I can to respond to comments.

UPDATE [Saturday January 13]:

Senator Bernie Sanders spoke to us this morning and delivered a barn-burner. I’ll try to blog it more extensively later, but he delivered a line that perfectly expresses why I am here in Memphis this weekend:

“If you’re concerned about healthcare, if you’re concerned about foreign policy, if you’re concerned about the economy, or if you’re concerned about global warming, you’re kidding yourself if you’re not concerned about corporate control of the media.”

Here’s the video of Bill Moyers’ opening talk from yesterday on YouTube.

Part 1:

Part 2:

Attending, participating in, AND blogging this conference concurrently is proving to be quite a challenge. I’ll do my best to get a new diary out later today or tomorrow.

If at first an idea is not absurd, there is no hope for it. – Albert Einstein

I was born and I live in Jackson, Mississippi, near what is known by convention as 90 degrees west longitude, 32 degrees north latitude.  (You can look up your own location on this arbitrary scale here.)

As a result of this curious happenstance, and by conventional rights, I am qualified to call myself a citizen of the municipality of Jackson, Mississippi, a citizen of the state of Mississippi, and a citizen of the United States of America.  Thus, I could be described as a Jacksonian, a Mississippian, and an American.  When it is convenient I use these monikers myself.  I apply them to myself and to others.  I also use my regional identity as a Southerner when it is convenient.

There is no escaping from these conventions because they are widely accepted as shorthand descriptors for sets of attitudes and outlooks in a convenient, but limited and faulty, tribal identification scheme.  For example, folks from rural Mississippi may use the words “Jackson folk” to describe and attribute urban attitudes and problems to the tribe of Jacksonians.  Likewise, many who make statements about Mississipians, Southerners, or Americans use these tribal identification schemes to describe their broad views of humans within these geographic boundaries.  In some cases, the utility of these modern tribal identification schemes makes their usage nearly unavoidable.

We’ll come back to 90 degrees west longitude, 32 degrees north latitude shortly, but first, I digress:
I am not a paleo-ethno-anthro expert, so when I recently became more interested in the concepts of tribe and tribalism, I googled ‘tribalism’.  Amongst the first two or three hundred results out of 1.1 million google hits, there seems to be much discussion about and even acceptance of the idea that all humans are hard-wired to consider themselves a part of some tribe or another.  There is also a recent surge of new brain studies suggesting that certain prejudices are hard-wired into our brains.  One of the interesting things that I found while researching tribalism was the concept of Dunbar’s Number (yes, I know it is merely a link to the wikipedia, but it will suffice for my non-rigorous purposes).

Primatologists have noted that, due to their highly social nature, non-human primates have to maintain personal contact with the other members of their social group, usually through grooming. Such social groups function as protective cliques within the physical groups in which the primates live. The number of social group members a primate can track appears to be limited by the volume of the neocortex region of their brain. This suggests that there is a species-specific index of the social group size, computable from the species’ mean neocortex volume.

In a 1993 article, Dunbar used the correlation observed for non-human primates to predict a social group size for humans. Using a regression equation on data for 36 primate genera, Dunbar predicted a human “mean group size” of 147.8 (casually represented as 150), a result he considered exploratory due to the large error measure (a 95% confidence interval of 100 to 230).

Dunbar then compared this prediction with observable group sizes for humans. Beginning with the assumption that the current mean size of the human neocortex had developed about 250,000 years BCE, i.e. during the Pleistocene, Dunbar searched the anthropological and ethnographical literature for census-like group size information for various hunter/gatherer societies, the closest existing approximations to how anthropology reconstructs the Pleistocene societies. Dunbar noted that the groups fell into three categories — small, medium and large, equivalent to bands, cultural lineage groups and tribes — with respective size ranges of 30-50, 100-200 and 500-2500 members each.

Dunbar’s surveys of village and tribe sizes also appeared to approximate this predicted value, including 150 as the estimated size of a neolithic farming village; 150 as the splitting point of Hutterite settlements; 200 as the upper bound on the number of academics in a discipline’s sub-specialization; 150 as the basic unit size of professional armies in Roman antiquity and in modern times since the 16th century; and notions of appropriate company size.

…

In its popularization, the research of Dunbar and others is taken as an upper bound of the number of fellow humans that an individual can view as being “truly human”. In this form, …[it] functions as a reductionistic and biologistic explanation for why humans can treat some humans with consideration and other humans indifferently or even inhumanely.[emphasis mine]

I think that Dunbar’s Number is revealing or at least acknowledging something important, but not conveying the whole of the picture for humans.  In our most base and animalistic existence, this number is apparently a good one, well supported by paleo-ethno-anthro research on human group sizes.

However, the rise of Agriculture, Urbanization and Nationalization have led us over the past ten thousand years or so to larger and larger tribal identification schemes.  The need for care and nurturing of larger numbers of relationships has been stretched and redefined upward time and again.  The progression of human population size has not been merely evolutionary, it has been revolutionary.  It is no wonder to me that our ability to view billions of other humans as totally human is something that we have to work on constantly.

And therein lies the rub.  The need to work to overcome our basic limitations will necessarily preclude some of us from achieving a sense of integrated living with a number of humans that is orders of magnitude larger than our individual animalistic equipage gives us the ability to identify with.  We’re only human, after all.  But where animalistic equipage ends, abstraction begins.  Symbolic substitutions and manipulations are not easy to grapple with, as many who have struggled with mathematics and language know.  The creation, manipulation, and maintenance of “truly human” as a symbolic representation of  “All Other Humans” is arguably more difficult than doing calculus or learning a foreign tongue.  It requires that we supercede the linear projections of Dunbar by realizing the exponential increase that the complexity of our hyper-enlarged primate brain size makes possible.

Some of us will remain tribal, in the negative sense of the word, and be unable to grasp the oneness of humanity or attribute humane motivations to large numbers of others.  It is difficult work to stay focused on the fact that in the Universe, we are all much, much, much more alike than we are different.  So, tribal words and tribal identifications will persist as convenient tags and imperfect symbols of groups of “Other Humans”.  And even though all of human history is written from within the tribal paradigm box, the actual utility of such an outlook is decreasing.  The arbitrariness of our conventions of geographical and tribal divisions has never been more apparent than it is today as we are increasingly faced with global human needs and global human interactions.

And now, back to the arbitrary geographic designation of 90 degrees west longitude, 32 degrees north latitude and the various convenient tribal designations used to describe the human inhabitants in the vicinity of that point:

If you look closely at the state flag of Mississippi you might think something like “white Mississippians are racists” and to some degree you would be absolutely correct.

Now, what may surprise you is that rather than getting in a huff about someone who might say “white Mississipians are racists”, I take no offense – even though I am a white Mississippian, but not a racist.  How can I be so un-indignant?  Because I do not fully embrace the characterization of myself as a Mississippian – I see myself as a part of something larger.  I do not own the concept of Mississippi and the concept of ‘Mississippian’ does not own all of me.  If I chose to identify myself wholly with and within the concept of ‘Mississippian’, I would be offended by those words, I think.  But I do not so choose.  I claim a Global Exception – a tribal enlargement – an exercise in symbolic substitution – a projection far beyond the limitations of my animalistic neocortical tribal equipage.  I am a citizen first and foremost of the Earth and I can choose to examine tribal generalizations without fear and loathing.

When specifically confronted with that statement – “white Mississippians are racists” – I first surrender my self to the prospect that I may be a racist white Mississippian.  After all, I am, by happenstance, a white Mississippian.  Then I choose to try to defeat any tribalistic impulse that I find inside my self, and view the statement for what it is – a tribal generalization.  There may be a great deal of truth in such a statement and to dismiss it completely because of a tribal attachment would be wrong, in my opinion.  If I discarded all such statements reflexively, I might throw the baby out with the bathwater in the process.  We all speak in generalizations from time to time, out of force of habit or for convenience or of necessity.  For me, a careful examination of my self and my tribal identifications is satyagraha for my soul and the first step to ahimsa toward the speaker of a tribal generalization.  The second step is to try to understand why the speaker is saying this and to attempt to identify and understand their underlying need.

Perhaps the speaker’s underlying need is for me to recognize that all Mississippians are valuable, not just white ones.  Or perhaps they need for me to recognize that they have personally suffered as a result of the actions or inactions of racist white Mississippians.  Once I clarify and acknowledge this need by engaging in a discussion, I can then ask the speaker what they would like for each of us to do about the issue of racism in Mississippi and hopefully reach an agreement about doing something.  Compare and contrast the possible outcomes of this approach to one in which I reflexively respond to the speaker with a simple declarative and contrary statement, such as “You are wrong, wrong, wrong, ALL white Mississippians are NOT racists, you reverse bigot you.”  Whose needs would be met by that course of speaking?  What agreement on positive action could possibly result from it?…

This diary is not intended as a diatribe against tribes.  I belong to many tribes.  By virtue of my various tribal memberships, I gain common experience with subsets of humanity.  My hard-wired brain circuits are not totally useless.  I try to use them for my own higher purposes.  Nor is this diary intended as denial that members of a tribe have shared responsibilities and culpabilities, though I do believe there is a huge difference in those respects between self-selected tribes and happenstance tribes.  Once you make such a distinction between self-selection and happenstance, you can see the internal inconsistency illustrated by the simple declarative and contrary statement in the above example:  IF I view myself as a self-selected  “white Mississippian”, THEN my culpability for the racism in my state is arguably larger than if I do not so self-select AND I’m more likely to respond with non-productive tribalistic defenses.  By self-selecting a larger tribal identity I may avoid some culpability for the partial truth contained in the original generalization, but I do not alleviate myself of responsibility for positive action or for meeting the real human needs contained within or hidden behind the original generalization.

This diary is a diatribe against a type of tribalism wherein one totally surrenders one’s self-definition to a tribe and one’s self to tribalistic response mechanisms.  I have never bought into such tribalisms, at least not for long.  (Emerson and Thoreau were my first literary philosophical heroes and I’ve tried to practice their interesting skepticisms.  If you haven’t read Thoreau and understood him, at least Walden and Civil Disobedience, you are not a real American. ;p  )

This diary is also intended as a request to acknowledge the role that tribalisms and tribal instincts play in our lives and in our discussions of politics.  The first step toward a cure for overly strong tribalistic tendencies is to know your tribes and tribalisms by whatever means of self-examination you choose.  If you would like to find out more about your own hard-wired prejudices and tribal instincts, I invite you to go to the Project Implicit website and take a few of the research tests.  You might find out something about yourself.  Then the second step is to become an exception.  And learn that being tribeless, even in your mind, is very lonely business – like living alone on the side of a pond miles away from the city for a year or two.  But it’s good for your soul.  I promise.  And in the solitude of tribelessness, you may find that your tribe is THE human tribe now, and it is no longer based solely on geographic happenstance and convention.  As a result of thinking this way, you may someday find yourself in jail whilst the rest of your tribe carries on in the name of tribalistic responses.  The third step?  Claim your exception freely, and live it.  WE, all of humanity, are the tribe and we are also the exception.  As far as we know, we are a rare and special flower of the Universe itself.

I now pass the BooTribe Talking Stick to you.

She said this way was to sit quietly around whatever campfire one came upon, and wait until someone passed you the Talking Stick. Until then, it was wise to listen well with the ears of the heart, to the one who held it. In this way, one could hear their truest song.

When the Talking Stick came into your hands, you could sing your own song, and the other would hear it with their hearts ears. In such a way, many songs can be learned.

She said as we learn to hear and share the songs of others, we are drawn to hear more,  and the desire for a bridge between us is born, to be fed and nurtured well for the good of all people.  [deep bow to scribe the teacher, and to scribe‘s teacher]

.

First of all, please indulge me while I share something of my own beliefs.  In no particular order, I am or have been, an agnostic, a dunked-in-the-water Southern Baptist (the 1963 Baptist Faith and Message kind, excluding the 1998 addendum), a humanist(h.t. to our own mrboma), a metaphysical naturalist, a follower of the Church of Reality(shot of chinaco to bartcop),  a Bahá’í, a Zoroastrian, a deist, a Naturalist Buddhist, a Transcendentalist,a Unitarian Universalist, and an American Baptist, of sorts (h.t. and a deep bow to Reverend Professor Peter J. Gomes and a hearty “Amen” for his sermons – check out Patriotism is Not Enough for the text of a fine example of a great anti Iraq war sermon or this mp3 sound file of his recent sermon entitled “Tangible Truth” for an earful of mellifluous vocalisation with a real message).

Whew.  It’s been a long road for me and all of those belief/non-belief systems.  I invite you to examine some of the many links I provided above and enjoy the diversity of systems that humans have created for themselves/have received.  Or look for links to other systems that I have not included here.  There are many belief systems that I haven’t gotten to…..yet!  LOL!  (If you would like to leave us all another link or two to share some good websites explaining your own religion or belief/non-belief system or that of others, please do so in the comments below.)

At this point in my seeking, I no longer believe that it matters to me what you believe in your own private mind about who, what, or if Goddess/God/gods/goddesses is/are.  The only evidence I can have about what you believe in your own private mind is how you publicly act on your private beliefs.  (Given that speech is a form of action, I rule out of consideration as pure action only those words which you speak about what you believe in your private mind about who, what, or if Goddess/God/gods/goddesses is/are – but that’s another religio-philosophical essay which basically boils down to who cares what you say about what you believe if you don’t act right….)

OK, I’ll start getting to the real purpose of this diary: the proposition that some who call themselves Christians act as though they do not believe in the words of the Bible, which is the official record of Christianity and the storehouse of Christian knowledge and Christian concepts of moral truth.  I offer this diary as a rebuke to them, in the spirit of the Christian faith that I believe contains much truth.  To wit:

Luke 17:3 Take heed to yourselves: If thy brother trespass against thee, rebuke him; and if he repent, forgive him.

I also offer this diary as a tool and reference for you to use to rebuke certain of our brothers and sisters, regardless of what you believe in your personal private mind about Jesus and the Bible.  Personally, I consider it universally moral to use the words of a particular belief system to rebuke the adherents of that belief system in order to promote the morality and truth I find within that belief system.  I may be wrong about that, but its not because I haven’t thought about it a lot and tried hard to arrive at a correct understanding.

And so, finally, now that the disclaimers are done and my purposes proclaimed, we arrive together at the point of all this:  A fine piece of work I stumbled across that fleshes out my own understandings of the moral failures of the current administration from the perspective of the faith that Mr. Bush proudly proclaims.

Bloodguilty Churches  [or, pdf]

Why Bush’s Agenda Is Immoral and an Abomination to God

By Katherine Yurica

George W. Bush, his administration, the Republican controlled congress as well as the Republican Party itself, and most of the churches in America (including evangelical, Southern Baptist, Pentecostal and Roman Catholic), stand indicted–not by men–not by this writer–but by the very Holy Scriptures the religious-right and Mr. Bush profess to uphold.

Weighed against the Bible, the Bush actions are not only morally corrupt–they are unchristian and unbiblical to the core.

I recommend that you download the pdf for future reference, or at least read the whole article online, but I have excerpted a few sections for you here.

On the rush to war:

The prophet Isaiah describes the nation who rushed to war this way:

“Their works are works of iniquity, and the act of violence is in their hands. Their feet run to evil, and they make haste to shed innocent blood; their thoughts are thoughts of iniquity; desolation and destruction are in their paths and highways.

“The way of peace they know not, and there is no justice or right in their goings; they have made them crooked paths; whoever goes in them does not know peace.” (Isaiah 59:7-8 Amplified)”.

 On torture:

There is not a single instance in the Bible where torture is authorized or condoned. It is always presented as something used against the righteous, and the righteous have never resorted to torturing their enemies. The word is used only once in the King James Version at Hebrews 11:35:  

“…Others were tortured to death with clubs, refusing to accept release [offered on the terms of denying their faith] that they might be resurrected to a better life. Others had to suffer the trial of mocking and scourging, and even chains and imprisonment. They were stoned to death; they were lured with tempting offers [to renounce their faith]; they were sawn asunder; they were slaughtered by the sword; [while they were alive] they had to go about wrapped in the skins of sheep and goats, utterly destitute, oppressed, cruelly treated…” (Hebrews 11:35-37 Amplified Version).

On immigrants:

God actually instructs us by making reference to the forerunner of our tax system that funds are to be used to feed and clothe the aliens among us as well as the poor, the orphans and the widows:

“…and the stranger or temporary resident, and the fatherless, and the widow, who are in your towns, shall come and eat and be satisfied; that the Lord your God may bless you in all the work of your hands that you do.” (Deuteronomy 14:29. Amplified.)

“And if a stranger dwells temporarily with you in your land, you shall not suppress and mistreat him.
“But the stranger who dwells with you shall be to you as one born among you; and you shall love him as yourself, for you were strangers in the land of Egypt. (Leviticus 19: 33-34. Amplified Version.).

On tort ‘reform’:

Thus Mr. Bush’s so-called reform  marks the end of the victim’s ability to receive just compensation for his or her injuries. Mr. Bush also wants to put additional limitations on filing lawsuits: he wants to establish new rules for class action lawsuits and asbestos cases, making it more difficult for the victims to prosecute their cases.

Not only does Mr. Bush’s position violate biblical laws, but it is reprehensible to God: the balance of power in a courtroom cannot and may not be switched to the defendant’s side by edict of the president and his slavish Republican “Christians” that sit in the House and Senate!

 In fact, Mr. Bush and his congressional leaders are attempting to undo what God established: the Bible states unequivocally:

“You shall not deprive the poor man of justice in his suit.” (Exodus 23:6. New English Version).

On abortion:

To understand the biblical view of abortions, one must examine miscarriages and how the Bible treated them. In fact, the Bible makes no distinction between a woman who miscarried and a woman who was having her regular menstrual period….  In this respect, an abortion or miscarriage was equal to a woman’s menstrual period and the fetus was not ever considered a person. [see Leviticus 15:19, Leviticus 15:25 and Leviticus 18:19]
…
The real topping to this issue that reveals the hypocrisy of the churches is the fact they have never believed a miscarried fetus is a sentient human, else they would have held funerals for them.

And in conclusion:

There are seven attributes of a man that God hates. God lays out the psychological profile of those traits he abhors. The following are from Proverbs 6:16-19 in the Amplified Version:

1.      “A proud look [the spirit that makes one overestimate himself and underestimate others].
2.      “A lying tongue,
3.      “Hands that shed innocent blood,
4.      “A heart that manufactures wicked thoughts and plans,
5.      “Feet that are swift in running to evil,
6.      “A false witness who breathes out lies [even under oath],
7.      “And he who sows discord among his brethren.”.

I’m humbly looking forward to forgiveness for our sisters and brothers who repent.  Some of them have already, some are beginning to, and some may never.  Remember, most of them are really trying to do the right things, they just don’t see things our way.  Let’s work to change that.

And now, I ask you to please return to Rev. Gomes, my favorite Christian preacher of all time for a 33 minute long mp3 sound file of his May 28, 2006 sermon that applies to this exact topic, and which is a savvy commentary complete with references to Hitlerian evil and including some inspiration for all of us, Christian or not, to stand with “Power” against the force of evil.

Rev. Gomes

Today and forever may Goddess/God/gods/goddesses be with you, or not, as you believe in your private mind, and may you seek, find, and be moved by the source of your power to act for good.

Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world. Indeed, it is the only thing that ever has. -Margaret Mead

Howdy, ya’ll!

A few of us are committed to the Memphis in May BBQ Fest this weekend and we’re hoping to see more of you there.

Please email Brenda Stewart (stormyweather1_at_hotmail_dot_com) for details on where to meet and how to contact us as you approach downtown Memphis.

See ya’ll there!

OK everybody, if we’re gonna do this, let’s get the plan together.  BBQ fest is coming.

We left off with a small number of folks who were interested, but most weren’t sure if they could make it.

Some of us needed to wait until later to make a decision on it.

It’s almost here, so maybe we can figure out if we will have enough folks to make a go of it.

I’d love to see this come together.  How about it?

Any thoughts?

The results are in!  It’s the Memphis in May World Championship Barbecue Cooking Contest, May 18-20.  Please visit the link and browse the “–Quick links:–” drop-down menu.  From the Ms. Piggie contest to the People’s Choice Award Judging, you’ll find the details there.

For those of you who may not have an interest in bbq pork or beef, the city of Memphis is full of other great attractions, and attendance at the bbq-fest is obviously optional.  Our rendezvous sites and times will not involve the consumption of pork, and will start with a Friday night gathering and end with Sunday brunch.  Saturday will be the day where I hope everyone can meet at one place and time.

As for lodging, it is not possible at this time for me to find a single place for us to stay together.  The events during Memphis in May are usually well attended and the lodgings become more difficult to acquire as the time approaches.  BrendaStewart has some helpful info in the South thread which you may wish to consult.

I’m very much looking forward to meeting all of you!  We will plan several opportunities for rendezvous as the time approaches.  Please hotlist this diary and use it for keeping everyone informed about your success with hotels, etc.  I will be looking for a place to stay soon, and will let you all know specifics about what I find.

Howdy Ya’ll!

We’d like to plan a BooTribbers meetup in Memphis and we have several candidates for dates and times.  “Memphis in May” hosts several events every year throughout the month of May.  There is also a DFA workshop at the end of March(March 25th-26th, Sat-Sun, 8:30 am – 5:30 pm).

I think if we plan early enough we could probably get accomodations in Memphis during May, but the sooner the better.  The DFA Workshop doesn’t clash with any major events in Memphis that I’m aware of.

Hopefully those of us who are interested can pick a time where we could all go.  Please take the poll and let’s get the planning underway.

Pelosi’s Privileged Resolution

Today, in a heroic attempt, Nancy Pelosi introduced a Privileged Resolution on Iraq which laid out the crimes of the President Katrina administration and called for the Thug Leaders of the House of Representatives to exercise their oversight responsibilities and “conduct a thorough investigation of of abuses relating to the Iraq War”.  

Privileged Resolution on Iraq

The resolution was tabled by the Thugs in a strict party-line vote, with one Democrat voting with them.

“A vote to table is a vote to cover-up,” Pelosi said. “Congress has the responsibility to find out why so many things in Iraq have gone so terribly wrong. That is why I asked the House to investigate abuses relating to Iraq. Yet, Republicans again thwarted efforts to answer the questions of the American people. This Republican cover-up Congress refuses to live up to its oversight responsibility.”

Here are links to video of Pelosi on the floor today.  (I couldn’t get the links to work directly, but I was able to go to the page and download the .wmv files to my hard drive and view them that way)

floor speech video

privileged resolution video

[If you have to do what I did to get them to play, use this link, then find the picture of Pelosi and right-click on the link below her picture and choose “Save link as…”  from the drop down menu….]

This is as much as the House Rules will allow Pelosi to do.  The House Rules do not allow for the same kind of actions that Reid took in the Senate, so this is action by Pelosi is the MORAL EQUIVALENT of what Reid was able to do in the Senate when he moved for a closed session recently.

Please let Pelosi know that we appreciate her by contacting her at this link.